Smith: Klentak wants to build a champion at Angel Stadium

ANAHEIM – The San Francisco Giants had won the World Series the night before we rode the elevator to the third floor of the Angel Stadium executive offices to get a glimpse inside the genius cluster running the team that celebrated its one and only championship a decade ago.

Here, last Monday, in the annex just beyond right field, offseasons don't exist. Everyone still comes to work, especially when there's no victory parade to plan.

The first office on the left belongs to Angels assistant general manager Matt Klentak, a slender, 6-foot-3, former Dartmouth College shortstop and 2002 economics grad who is part of General Manager Jerry Dipoto's brain trust.

"Matt has a tremendous baseball acumen," said Dipoto, who learned about Klentak's skills while interviewing in 2011 for the GM job with the Baltimore Orioles, for whom Klentak was the director of baseball operations.

"He understands so many facets of baseball operations and has been a huge asset to the Angels."

During his first year on the job, Klentak, 32, hasn't spent much time decorating his office beyond loading yearly editions of The Bill James Handbook and other volumes of data-dense baseball guides into the cherry finished bookshelves that match his large desk covered by his handwritten notes.

The white walls are bare except for a flat-screen TV always tuned to baseball and three framed items: a photo collage of his wife, Lauren, and their 14-month-old daughter, Valerie; a photo of Angel Stadium; and a garage-sale painting of an old-time lefty pitcher that was a gift from the late former Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan.

A print of Norman Rockwell's "The Rookie" – a gift from his in-laws – and framed black and white, 8x10 photo of an 1890 baseball game between Dartmouth and Amherst on the Dartmouth Green – a gift from his wife – sit atop the statistic-centric bookshelf symbolizing Klentak's baseball philosophy.

"I wouldn't consider myself a metrics guy but I think balance is important," said the affable Klentak, sitting on his office's small sofa beneath a window that overlooks the Angel Stadium parking lot.

Like Dipoto, Klentak blends traditional baseball insight with modern statistical analyses of player performance to build a team. They're rebuilding for 2013, having come up short for a third consecutive postseason despite owner Arte Moreno's $155 million payroll investment and 89 victories.

Klentak has few idle moments these days. His laptop was propped open. His cell phone chimed three times with alerts during this interview. His bulletin board behind his desk is crowded with lists of free agents and contract statuses of current players, a map of Angels scouting territories, and memos from the league office.

Within days of this interview, the Angels declined the $13 million option for Ervin Santana and the $15.5 million option for Dan Haren, two former All-Star starting pitchers who underperformed in 2012. They also held off making $13.3 million qualifying offer to popular veteran outfielder Torii Hunter.

It's Klentak's job to keep the numbers in check, juggling salary commitments for players, coaches and scouts, and the operating budgets for the major- and minor-league teams. He makes some tough calls, including telling backup catcher Bobby Wilson he was waived, but also the congratulatory calls informing players of promotions.

He monitors the team's compliance with MLB rules and the Collective Bargaining Agreement and knows the key dates on the baseball calendar as well as his own birthday.

Nov. 30 is the next deadline for the Angels to decide whether to tender contracts to their four arbitration-eligible players: third baseman Alberto Callaspo, slugger Kendrys Morales and pitchers Jerome Williams and Kevin Jepsen.

"We've been pretty busy, always planning," Klentak said, before jumping into another impromptu brainstorming session with Dipoto who had just knocked on his door.

This is the front-office life Klentak wanted since graduating college and knowing he wanted a future in baseball.

He grew up in Medfield, Mass., the Little League playing son of a father, George, who worked as an engineer and a mother, Josee, who was a teacher's aide for blind and special needs children. He idolized Cal Ripken Jr., the Orioles' 6-foot-4 shortstop who paved the way for a tall, lanky Klentak to play the position.

"From a scouting perspective, I had reasonably good, fast hands; a strong throwing arm; could run okay; but I couldn't lay off breaking balls," he confessed. "I batted ninth for most of my career."

Breaking into baseball meant his devoting his first summer after college to working as a teacher's aide and devoting his late afternoons and evenings to networking. He wrote letters, sent emails, and made cold calls to MLB front offices, seeking to develop contacts.

One of the few who responded was Theo Epstein, who, upon being named Boston Red Sox GM, helped steer Klentak toward a baseball operations internship with the Colorado Rockies in 2003. He made $1,200 a month, worked 80-hour weeks and gained experience in everything from video and advance scouting to financial analyses.

Without a full-time Rockies job open, Klentak jumped to the Commissioner's Office in 2004 for a part-time job in the Labor Relations department and worked his way into a full-time position as Senior Coordinator in Salary and Contract Administration. He was a consultant to all 30 MLB teams, advising GMs and club presidents on rules compliance and cost-saving expenditures.

His connections paid off again, landing him in the Orioles' front office in 2008 and with the Angels since Nov. 23, 2011.

"It was a year ago that I interviewed for this job with Jerry," said Klentak, recalling their meeting in a Milwaukee hotel. "We talked for six hours until 4 in the morning and we just clicked."

Working closely with Dipoto, Klentak stays in the game to build for an Angels World Series.